Fun Belt Podcast dug deep into the mysteries of the Sun Belt in Episode 4, recruiting Chris Vannini of The Athletic to parse the tea leaves of realignment, the USA Today Coaches Poll, and something about SBC Commissioner Keith Gill personally wooing Marshall
Category Archive: Football
culture is new. The coaching staff is new. The Vice Chancellor for Intercollegiate Athletics is new. But the program is seeking an old result – a return to Sun Belt dominance. It begins September 4.
Fun Belt Podcast solved the mystery of the South Alabama Jaguars in Episode 3 with the help of Jag scribes Creg Stephenson (AI.com) and Doug Konkel (JagsJungle.com). Here’s some of what we learned:
The SEC has scanned the landscape and decided that bigger is better; the more, the merrier. The SEC has all the money in the world, but all isn’t enough. Texas and Oklahoma lines the golden coffers with more gold. Size matters now, and if we’re going to survive, we need size.
The Sun Belt has emerged from 2020’s ooze like a Greek god from an enormous seashell. We have a CVS receipt of reasons to love the Sun Belt. Why screw up a good thing? Unless we’re talking about adding members (which would be ideal), there’s honestly little reason to leave a conference that with a ceiling g so high.
Do it, Commissioner Gill. Send the invitations. It can be a text. Tell them that, because have full hearts, we will accept them into our ranks provided they work to meet our standards. After all, the Sun Belt is a conference on the rise, and we don’t need anchors from a failing ideology dragging us into mediocrity’s lukewarm depths.
New Arkansas State head football coach Butch Jones isn’t in New Orleans to ghost write Shakespeare. He’s seen flanked by well-dressed muscle – TW Ayers and Andre Harris Jr. Jones’ walk-up music isn’t the AC/DC old-standard Chip Lindsey dials up; it’s the Arkansas State fight song. Nonsense does not a Butch Jones confidant.
Nobody asked us, but we’re doing it anyway. Fun Belt Podcast launches Friday (maybe) and it will absolutely open wide the crystal portals of perception.
I sympathize with the level-headed concerns: the vaccine was developed quickly, it has not yet been fully approved by the FDA, and some side effects have been reported in extremely rare cases. If you’ve ever eaten a gas station potato log, you’ve taken bigger risks for far lower stakes.
The conference has seen growth, defections, additions, subtractions, and upgrades. But the process (absolutely necessary in the SBC evolution) was heavy on the unmerciful beatings.
